Visiting with the Grade 8 Class at St. David

I visited with the Grade 8 students at St. David's school this morning.  Since they are all hooked up to the net, I asked the teacher to nominate one of the students to take notes during my presentation, and we fired up the smart board (apparently we were lucky that it was working, since it's been known to develop some gremlins from time to time that even stump the tech wizards.

Tamera took notes during the presentation

Here then is a point-form précis of the converstion I had with the twenty-four students who were present.  Thanks to Tamera for her note taking.

•  We are trying to figure out where Father Tony is from.

• The class is guessing things like the Arctic, Holland, Brazil, but they are all wrong. Father Tony is pointing out our choices and giving clues so that we can hopefully solve the riddle.

• Riley found were he was from, he is from Guyana.

• The average temperature is about 25 degrees.

• Guyana is below sea level.

• The land is about 10 to 15 feet below the sea, which means we have lots of floods.

• The English built a wall around the country to stop the water.  Actually the British invited the Dutch to build the wall.  Since they were in Suriname, just next door, they could bring their expertise to bear in Guyana as well.

• The  had a man-made door (called a koka, built into the sea wall) so the water can get back out to sea, after a high tide.

• In the 1970's his parents and two brothers and he, immigrated from Guyana to Toronto then to the Sault.

• Father Tony had never seen snow, until he was 8. He saw his first snow fall in the Sault.

• When he went to school Father Tony, meet a lot of people with different names, and that different backgrounds. In grade 6 Father Tony started taking Core French. This was a whole other language for him, but he realized that he enjoys French. He has taken French all through elementary and High school, and even 2 years at University level. He also severed in a French church, for 2 years.

• A number of years later, he also learned Italian.

• Today, we learned that Father Tony's Father is Chinese, his mother is Portuguese. He was born in Guyana. Grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, and also speaks 3 different languages: Italian, English, and also French.

• Lunedi scorso ero in Italia dove ho passato 9 giorni means Last Monday, I was in Italy, where I had spent 9 days.

This last phrase was written on the blackboard so that I could encourage the students to try translating some Italian.  They were intrigued with the different languages, and I think they really enjoyed learning about a number of different cultures.  I wonder how their teacher will test this new knowledge.

Did you know that:

•  There are only 23 letters in the Italian alphabet.

• There are 27 letters in the Spanish alphabet.

• Written Chinese has more than 260 character equivalents to the letters of our alphabet.